Crosswalks in Silicon Valley hacked to sound like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk

PALO ALTO, Calif. (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Crosswalks in Silicon Valley were hacked to replace auditory instructions with messages that sound like the voices of tech giants Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, according to videos posted online.

According to the Los Angeles Times, videos showed crosswalks also playing the fake messages in Menlo Park and Redwood City.

Footage by Bulou Varanisese shows a crosswalk in Palo Alto broadcasting a Musk impression.

"Hi, this is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla engineering," the voice says. "You know, they say money can't buy happiness and…I guess that's true. God knows I've tried. But it can buy a Cybertruck and that's pretty sick right?...I'm so alone."

Another video posted by Colin Hellbut from Palo Alto shows a crosswalk altered to sound like Mark Zuckerberg,

"It's normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcefully insert AI into every facet of your conscious experience," a voice says. "And I just want to assure you, you don’t need to worry because there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it."

A City of Palo Alto spokeswoman told Storyful it was "determined that 12 downtown intersections were similarly malfunctioning, and that tampering may have occurred on Friday."

"City staff have disabled the audible feature until further repairs can be made. Other traffic signals in the city were checked and the impact is isolated," she said.

"Signal operations are otherwise unaffected, and motorists are reminded to always exercise caution around pedestrians," she added.

Officials in Redwood City said they identified four locations with hacked crosswalk signals and, in Menlo Park, California Department of Transportation officials said they were in talks with the city to investigate a hacked crosswalk near the Meta campus, according to the Los Angeles Times.